This invention relates to termite baits and a method of using the same for termite control.
Each year, termites do substantial damage to structures and cause millions of dollars in economic loss. Termites, especially subterranean termites, feed on wood, and primarily by wood infected by fungus. In the early 1960's, it was found that the brown rot fungus, lenzites trabea, was especially attractive to subterranean termites. When this fungus was cultured on pine blocks, an effective termite attractant was prepared.
Even though methods of attracting termites have been known, the only successful termite bait/toxicant combination was a combination of this fungus with the insecticide Mirex, sold by Allied Chemical. Mirex, however, has been unavailable for use because of toxicology problems and, accordingly, a search has been conducted for an effective replacement for the Mirex in a termite bait composition.
Mirex was an especially attractive toxicant for termite baits because of its method of activity. This material was a relatively slow-acting toxicant which allowed the termite workers to injest the toxicant and communicate the source of the bait to other termite workers within the colony.
Due to the nature of termite colonies and the highly interrelated social order within the colony, the killing of substantial numbers of worker termites will sufficiently disrupt the colony structure so as to cause the colony to ultimately die off.
If the toxicant in the termite bait is too rapid acting, other termites will develop bait shyness and shy away from that particular bait material.
It has now been found that highly effective termite bait compositions can be prepared by mixing an effective amount of brown rot fungus, lenzites trabea, with from 0.1 to 20% by weight of a boron compound selected from the group consisting of calcium boride, colemanite, ulexite and mixtures thereof.